Eccentric singer/songwriter Tom Waits has found a way of keeping his unreleased songs from leaking online - he's staging private listening parties for new album Bad As Me in his car.

The revered Downtown Train singer announced the release date of his new album on Tuesday (23Aug11) with a hilarious online skit, during which he was forced to stop playing snippets of tunes at a "private party" over record company fears the tracks would leak online.

Upset Waits told fans, "I thought this was a private party. This was, like, a sneak preview for you and me, but apparently not... I'm gonna have to rethink this."

The video then skipped to the quirky star inviting a line of fans one-by-one to join him in a broken down motor on a vacant lot as he played tunes from the new album, which hits stores and the Internet on 25 October (11). (c) WENN